By LUIZ MARQUES*
Commentary based on the book by Francesca Bria and Evgeny Morozov
A PhD in Social and Economic Sciences from Sapienza University of Rome and Commissioner for Technology and Innovation in Barcelona, Francesca Bria, together with the editor of the North American magazine Foreign Policy and columnist in several European newspapers, Evgeny Morozov, writes the book together The Smart City: Urban Technologies and Democracy. The essay analyzes the dynamics and structure of technological solutions in Smart cities, with critical thinking.
The Italian Francesca Bria and the Belarusian Evgeny Morozov unveil the changes in the way financial capital and rentierism are coupled with platforms and subject populations to precarious work, technology-based gentrification and pervasive exploitation. Thus, computing instruments infiltrate the pores and arteries of reality imperceptibly. “No city can match the computing power of Google, Facebook or even Uber”. Not even a coalition of municipalities can stand up to the powerful cognitive assets of big techs.
Today, technological advances elevate “data worship” to the status of a religion of the hegemonic economy. Sensors, connectors, routers and algorithms transform urban space into a laboratory for extracting data, directing and modeling consumer and political behavior. For all intents and purposes, the results are presented as a “neutral” development of information technology. The Internet would be a technical manager of things, instead of people. The marketing narrative is colored by manipulation and lies, like fiscal adjustments in the eyes of the naive.
Four points are highlighted in city projects - truly – intelligent: (a) contracts with companies that emphasize free software and auditable open codes for the benefit of the community; (b) demonstration that popular demands are met, and not captured by executive agents; (c) experiments in specific neighborhoods to verify the effectiveness of the whole; and (d) creation of collective data governance (data commons) about people, environments and connected objects. The last item changes the property regime to finally deprivatize information.
Neoliberalism 2.0
Everyone wants to materialize a rational world, but the newest attempts are responsible for an entrepreneurial and financialized urbanism, whose expansion took off after the eighties. Smart cities – the expression is patented by IBM – they want to show the urban superiority of the market form. Progress is attributed to the ingenuity and mythologized inventiveness of the private sector, being synonymous with green city, zero-carbon city, city eco-friendly. The corporate agenda becomes naturalized. Instead of investigating the climate crisis, vultures profit from floods and deaths.
India already has private cities (Lavasa, Gurgaon) with literacy targets in prisons to reduce recidivism. Worse, it has a trillion moneys for another hundred cities with the futuristic seal of the “Jetson family”. German, Chinese and Silicon Valley companies fight for the business opportunity. Closed-circuit cameras activate a panopticon with drones and militarized robots. The collection of personal data allows tenants to be charged according to their possibilities and needs, Online. O McKinsey Global Institute estimates an economic impact of “Internet of Things” applications and products of between 3,9 and 11,1 trillion dollars, in 2025.
The indexes and scores are manufactured by “risk agencies”, Moody's ou Standard & Poor's, with the compilation of rankings of innovation, creativity and the emerging urban-capitalist complex in think tanks, foundations, NGOs. By the way, to evoke two French neologisms, the money crusade accuses the bureaucrate responsible for regulatory bodies and praises the intellocrate, artificial intelligence (AI). Neoliberalism 1.0 is absorbed by neoliberalism 2.0, which acts like treasure diggers in the modern jungle. The web is not an innocent club of friends.
The data is commodities auctioned in underground markets, without spotlights or fanfare. One can guess Elon Musk’s role in the administration of the imperialist power. Increasing the stakes in the dogmas of the Washington Consensus – privatization, entrepreneurship and rejection of the vectors of equality. But the mobilization of society against the current of accumulation requires calibrating the language. In Wall Street we already hear about the smart participation and smart citizens. Changing so that everything stays as it is: this is the cunning capable of distinguishing the system of domination that has learned, better than the previous ones, to metabolize criticism and transform it into merchandise for sale.
Solidarity alliances
For Francesca Bria and Evgeny Morozov, the battle to curb greed requires strong “ties with social movements and a generation of politicians who reject highly financialized austerity urbanism.” In Brazil, rent seeking shields the Central Bank from extortionate interest rates. The right to the city implies the conversion of water, air, electricity, housing and health into common property, with the reversal of the private appropriation of common values on the platforms. A tough game, certainly.
In Chapter 1 of Part II, the authors focus on concrete case studies that challenge the eclipse of consumer and citizen consciousness. Starting with the emblematic and charming capital of Catalonia, with an anarchist tradition, which is playing a leading role in the conquest of technological sovereignty. “Barcelona is undergoing a democratic revolution, from the bottom up, promoting networks of rebel cities that innovate in public policies and challenge the status quo".
Next, the duo lists fights for open data technology (Barcelona, Amsterdam); universal broadband (New York, San Francisco); hacking of mobile apps (New York, San Francisco); smart city in the interests of the masses (Helsinki); cooperation between cities for the sharing of services (Seoul). What unites scattered insurgencies awaiting a synthesis is the defense of the public sphere. It is a matter of re-actualizing what Edgar Morin exposes in The breach about the events of May 1968, on the world map. At the time, the protests targeted the authorities. Now, they confront the attack on the privacy of individuals and the hijacking of digital collective assets by big techs, in broad daylight.
Computerization is the core of relations in the “age of infocracy,” as Byung-Chul Han called it when reflecting on the clash between digitalization and democracy; not because of Machiavellian “reason of state,” but because of the ambition of technological monopolies (surveillance capitalism). Platforms are multi-purpose and of undeniable importance for the stability of the social order. Reason enough for people to access and make decisions that affect their (our) daily existence. Secrecy violates the democratic and republican principle of administrative transparency.
Cities must exercise sovereignty over artificial intelligence and machine learning to guide the direction of computer infrastructures (software, hardware, data centers). Solidarity alliances with progressive movements, parties, and governments ensure that information from cybernetic devices is not held hostage by corporate silos; it is of public utility. The predatory axis is not an option; it is surrender. Solidarity, human, environmental, labor, and gender rights condense the guidelines for another world. The poet’s performative dream is the certificate for existence: “From this moment on / freedom will be something alive and transparent / like a fire or a river.”
* Luiz Marques is a professor of political science at UFRGS. He was Rio Grande do Sul's state secretary of culture in the Olívio Dutra government.
Reference
Francesca Bria & Evgeny Morozov. The smart city: urban technologies and democracy. Translation: Humberto do Amaral. New York: Routledge, 2019, 192 pages. [https://amzn.to/4bbkKOE]
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